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The nonprofit needs cash donations to help pay for graduation packets, its dormitory and other needs of foster teens, including luggage. It also needs gift cards to help provide these items.

As children in foster care grow older and closer to independent living, options for their future often are uncertain.

With little knowledge of how the “real world” works, many face unrealistic expectations in the transition to adulthood.

“Essentially, an 18- or 19-year-old is a child,” said Mary Fuentes Valdez, vice president and secretary of Youth Transitioning Into Adulthood, an organization that provides life-skills training to teens and young adults in foster care. “We realized there's a big need for bridging the gap for youth leaving foster care,” she said

YTIA is one of the area nonprofits featured as part of the San Antonio Express-News' Grace of Giving series, which will conclude Christmas Day.

Valdez and Brenda Knowles, president and treasurer of YTIA, are child welfare attorneys who started the organization in 2009 in hopes of one day building a dormitory for children aging out of the foster care system.

“Most people go to college and grow up there. (For foster children), school is not really a priority,” Knowles said.

While fundraising for the dormitory, YTIA also provides workshops that teaches teens everything from banking to budgeting and voting to getting a credit report. It also provides graduation supplies, and in the spring will start offering luggage to teens that sometimes stuff their belongings into trash bags when traveling.

Valdez and Knowles said the teens get training from the state, but the YTIA workshops take it a step further.

“We're trying to enhance the learning they get,” Valdez said, adding she and Knowles have encouraged their current clients to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to experience the value of giving back.

Although the workshops have been successful, the organization's ultimate goal is to give children a place to learn independence and responsibility.

The Dorm, a faith-based dormitory, would house residents ages 18 to 22. Dorm residents would be required to sign a lease and work or attend school. Foster children may remain in state care until they're 21, if they're in school, but many choose to leave.

Their risk of encountering abuse is high. Many have faced homeless, unemployment or underemployment, and unplanned pregnancy.

Valdez and Knowles said they have received many calls from teens and young adults who are staying with someone they don't know well. Providing a dormitory setting could help curb such risks, they said, and teach foster children the “basics” as they mature.

“You don't just jump out into the water, you've got to learn how to swim,” Knowles said.